Capital Scandal, ep. 16
Wed, Aug. 5th, 2009 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterSpoilers had to take an emotional break for a while
I had to wait a week or so before watching this because I was (and am) still so thrown into turmoil re: Cha Song Joo's death. I even did the thing where I watched five minute snippets at a time to get through the funeral scene without bawling my eyes out.
Oh show. I love you so much, and yet. I'm still not happy about killing off Cha Song Joo; I would have been much more okay with it had Lee Su Hyun gone down as well so she was more a first casualty instead of a woman in a refrigerator giving him angst for the rest of his life. I might have also been more okay with it had this episode treated Na Yeo Kyung differently. I'm annoyed that even though Wan and Yeo Kyung already had the argument about her learning to shoot, they revisit it. And I'm annoyed that even though they both learned at roughly the same time, Wan is better at it that she is. And I'm annoyed that Lee Su Hyun uses Song Joo's death as a reason to keep Yeo Kyung out of it.
I would not be as annoyed with Yeo Kyung singled out as an educator/strategist, not a fighter, since I do not think everyone has to be a fighter, and there was Cha Song Joo to counterbalance the usual female-as-educator thing. I even had a scenario in which Lee Su Hyun doesn't make it out of the final fight and Yeo Kyung and Wan take over Ae Mul Dan, which would still have made me happy! But the combination of not fighting, the guys getting the bulk of screen time, Yeo Kyung deciding not to kill Lee Kang Gu and it all being pointless because Lee Su Hyun kills him anyway was extremely frustrating.
I also thought they should have killed off Ueda Mamoru or to have made him more serious in the end, as a way to note even the comic Japanese characters were still directly involved in oppression.
The other odd bit in the final few episodes is that I felt Lee Su Hyun's character arc ended up overtaking the drama. And I don't think I think that just because I like him. Ever since the reveal of his being the leader of Ae Mul Dan, the show hasn't focused much on Wan and Yeo Kyung at all, with the exception of Wan getting the crap kicked out of him by Lee Kang Gu. There is Wan development, yes, but most of it is in relation to his friendship with Lee Su Hyun. I was mostly happy about this because it meant a lot of UST-ful scenes with LONGING and ANGST and NOT-TOUCHING with Cha Song Joo, until she got killed to further his angst.
In conclusion: I am not sure what to say at all! I very much dislike the final episode and have a billion rewrites in my head, and yet, so much of the rest of the show feed into all the things I love.
Some of my lack of throwing things is also because I have yet to watch a kdrama that sticks the landing: most have ranged from very disappointing to mildly annoying to "Kind of weird, but not bad!"
So with that caveat, I loved most of this series. It has anti-imperialist politics, albeit not too in depth; my favorite female character in a drama so far; what the costumers seem to think are 1930s fashion but actually are not (I love it anyway); swing-influenced kpop; and did I mention all the LONGING and ANGST and NOT-TOUCHING? And yet, I am tacking on that really big caveat!
I had to wait a week or so before watching this because I was (and am) still so thrown into turmoil re: Cha Song Joo's death. I even did the thing where I watched five minute snippets at a time to get through the funeral scene without bawling my eyes out.
Oh show. I love you so much, and yet. I'm still not happy about killing off Cha Song Joo; I would have been much more okay with it had Lee Su Hyun gone down as well so she was more a first casualty instead of a woman in a refrigerator giving him angst for the rest of his life. I might have also been more okay with it had this episode treated Na Yeo Kyung differently. I'm annoyed that even though Wan and Yeo Kyung already had the argument about her learning to shoot, they revisit it. And I'm annoyed that even though they both learned at roughly the same time, Wan is better at it that she is. And I'm annoyed that Lee Su Hyun uses Song Joo's death as a reason to keep Yeo Kyung out of it.
I would not be as annoyed with Yeo Kyung singled out as an educator/strategist, not a fighter, since I do not think everyone has to be a fighter, and there was Cha Song Joo to counterbalance the usual female-as-educator thing. I even had a scenario in which Lee Su Hyun doesn't make it out of the final fight and Yeo Kyung and Wan take over Ae Mul Dan, which would still have made me happy! But the combination of not fighting, the guys getting the bulk of screen time, Yeo Kyung deciding not to kill Lee Kang Gu and it all being pointless because Lee Su Hyun kills him anyway was extremely frustrating.
I also thought they should have killed off Ueda Mamoru or to have made him more serious in the end, as a way to note even the comic Japanese characters were still directly involved in oppression.
The other odd bit in the final few episodes is that I felt Lee Su Hyun's character arc ended up overtaking the drama. And I don't think I think that just because I like him. Ever since the reveal of his being the leader of Ae Mul Dan, the show hasn't focused much on Wan and Yeo Kyung at all, with the exception of Wan getting the crap kicked out of him by Lee Kang Gu. There is Wan development, yes, but most of it is in relation to his friendship with Lee Su Hyun. I was mostly happy about this because it meant a lot of UST-ful scenes with LONGING and ANGST and NOT-TOUCHING with Cha Song Joo, until she got killed to further his angst.
In conclusion: I am not sure what to say at all! I very much dislike the final episode and have a billion rewrites in my head, and yet, so much of the rest of the show feed into all the things I love.
Some of my lack of throwing things is also because I have yet to watch a kdrama that sticks the landing: most have ranged from very disappointing to mildly annoying to "Kind of weird, but not bad!"
So with that caveat, I loved most of this series. It has anti-imperialist politics, albeit not too in depth; my favorite female character in a drama so far; what the costumers seem to think are 1930s fashion but actually are not (I love it anyway); swing-influenced kpop; and did I mention all the LONGING and ANGST and NOT-TOUCHING? And yet, I am tacking on that really big caveat!
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(no subject)
Thu, Aug. 6th, 2009 03:07 am (UTC)Carefully not looking at spoilers, for once (ordinarily I love spoilers!), in case I end up watching this sometime.
(no subject)
Thu, Aug. 6th, 2009 08:54 pm (UTC)